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Before-and-after adverts, showing pictures of people who have lost weight or become fitter, feature in thousands of magazines. But how reliable are they, asks Justin Parkinson. Wow, what a transformation. Two volunteers go from looking pale and unfit to tanned, toned and dynamic.

Amateur photographer Martin Le-May, from Essex, has recorded the extraordinary image of a weasel riding on the back of a green woodpecker as it flies through the air. The photograph was taken at Hornchurch Country Park in east London on Monday afternoon.

The Israeli prime minister has begun a controversial speech to the US Congress, in which he will warn against a nuclear deal with Iran. It comes a day after Benjamin Netanyahu told a pro-Israel lobby group that Iran was enveloping the world with its "tentacles of terror"...

When American Buffalo were cross-bred with domestic cattle, a hybrid dubbed the "Beefalo" was spawned. But the creatures escaped and are now causing environmental havoc in The Grand Canyon. Some want a cull, but is this the best way to deal with the animals?...

A century ago, Iceland banned all alcoholic drinks. Within a decade, red wine had been legalised, followed by spirits in the 1930s. But full-strength beer remained off-limits until 1 March 1989. Megan Lane asks why it took so long for the amber nectar to come in from the Icelandic cold.

British industry has completed construction of the modules that make up the Lisa Pathfinder satellite. This remarkable probe will test the key technologies needed to detect gravitational waves in space.

It’s been just over 45 years since the Apollo Moon landings, and some would have it that we are failing to build big anymore; that we've since become too fascinated with the small, too impressed by our tablet computers, games consoles, and smartphones that we don't invest in grand, world-chan...

The revelation that police are holding a database of around 18 million mugshots has provoked an examination of the balance between civil liberties and catching criminals. But how effective is the technology?

People in the UK and US were being offered "isis" as one of the top suggestions when typing in the words "how can I join". Google does censor some search suggestions, so why was this one allowed through, asks Justin Parkinson...

Oculus's chief executive Brendan Iribe has denied that pornography could be a driving factor in the adoption of virtual reality technology. Last year Facebook bought Oculus VR for around $2bn (£1.2bn). Oculus's crowdfunding campaign raised $2.4m (£1.5m), 10 times the amount originally sought...

Kim Broughton found one of her hens - now renamed Ping Pong - had laid the round egg in her garden in Latchingdon, Essex, on 17 February - Pancake Day. She decided to auction the egg in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust after a friend's son died from the disease...

Fake "femmes fatales" have been used to steal battle plans and other data from Syrian opposition groups, a report suggests. The virtual women had been used in text chat on Skype to engage potential victims, security company FireEye said...

The trustworthiness of a web page might help it rise up Google's rankings if the search giant starts to measure quality by facts, not just links THE internet is stuffed with garbage. Anti-vaccination websites make the front page of Google, and fact-free "news" stories spread like wildfire...

The search giant is automatically building Knowledge Vault, a massive database that could give us unprecedented access to the world's facts GOOGLE is building the largest store of knowledge in human history – and it's doing so without any human help...

When faced with no suitable public toilets for her severely disabled son, Samantha Buck decided to take action. Alfie Buck is eight and is almost as tall as she is. He has quadriplegic cerebral palsy and is doubly incontinent.

Iraq's national museum has officially reopened in Baghdad, 12 years after it was closed in the aftermath of the US-led invasion. Many of the antiquities looted during the war have now been recovered and restored...

The girl's biological parents, Celeste and Morne Nurse, were reunited with her after she was enrolled in the same school as her sister. After seeing the pair's likeness, the biological family invited the girl for coffee and then contacted police...